to do.
9
Jack just stared at her, unable to speak. She looked just like she did in his dreams. Of course, she did. Why wouldn’t she? It was the same person. She had her hair pulled back in a bun, and wore no make-up; beauty, in a place like this, was something you did not want to accentuate. Her features were small, her mouth slightly crooked, and her eyes were big brown limpid pools. He felt enveloped by them. She had a kind of latent grin on her lips, like she was trying to hold back a laugh. She was wearing jeans and a loose fitting grey T shirt.
“So, how do you like it so far?” she asked, taking a small bite out of large potato chip. If she recognized him at all, knew anything of him or of their mission, her voice did not betray that knowledge. It was calm and casual, with no hint of excitement or tension. “It’s not so bad,” he said, his voice not nearly as shaky as he felt. “I’ve had worse.”
And that was the truth; he had. The last two years had been a succession of crappy jobs, one worse than the next.
“Where did you work before?” she asked. “A place in Akron,” he replied, trying not to stare too deeply into those all-consuming eyes. “Kind of like this one, actually. A packing plant.”
She poured the chips onto the table and said, “Have some.”
“Thank you,” he said, popping a chip into his mouth, and hoping he remembered how to chew. “So, how long were you there?” she asked. “About three months,” Jack replied.
“What about before that?” she asked.
Jack was starting to feel like he was under interrogation, with those eyes serving as heat lamps. “Two months at a vending company in Cedar Lake, Indiana” he said. “And before that, I did a stint in Ashford, Alabama.”
“Akron, Cedar Lake, Ashford,” Diane said, furrowing her brow. “Are you a drifter?” Jack just shrugged, and said “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“What about family?” she asked. “Do you have any?”
“I left home two years ago,” Jack said. “That’s when the drifting began.”
“Must get lonely,” she said, her voice still cold and impersonal, in stark contradistinction to her eyes, which bore holes in their target. “Yeah, it does,” Jack said. “But I was lonely with my family, too.”
“How so?”
“Well, my father was a Pentecostal preacher. Always trying to shove the bible down my throat. He thought . . .” Jack stopped. He could not tell her the real reason for the rift that had developed between himself and his father. That’s because it involved the mission, and he wasn’t prepared to mention that just yet. So, he just said “Well, you know how it is with parents sometimes.”
“Sure,” she shrugged, although it was obvious she sensed that he was holding something back.
An awkward silence ensued. It was awkward for him, anyway. He did not think she felt awkward in the least. To fill the silence, he asked “What about you?”
“What about me?” she asked.
“How long have you worked here?”
“About six months,” she said, “But something tells me I’ll be moving on soon.”
“You’re not a drifter like me, are you?” he asked.
She smiled slightly—a crooked, wry, beautiful smile—and said “Actually, I am. Except I’ve been drifting for more than two years. I’ve been drifting all my life.”
“How come?” he asked. He was surprised, yet kind of thrilled, that the conversation had become so personal so fast. Did she talk to everyone this way or did she know him? Recognize him? “I never had a family,” she said, “I bounced around in foster homes all my life. Then, when I was sixteen I ran away. Been on my own since then.”
“And still bouncing around?” Jack added.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Guess we’re just a couple of strays,” Jack noted.
“I guess so,” she replied. Another silence ensued, but this one was not so awkward. He was beginning to relax. She had a calm about her that was rubbing off on him.
“So, where are you staying?” she asked.
“Well, until I get enough money for a room, I’m sleeping on a park bench,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound like he was looking for sympathy; he wasn’t. “Well, we can’t have that,” she said. “You’ll just have to stay with me for a while.”
Jack’s heart almost stopped. Was he hearing her right? Did she just invite him to live with her? The thought so overwhelmed him that for a moment he actually considered declining the offer. But then he came to his senses, and said “Really? You would do that for me, a perfect stranger?” She just shrugged and said, “Us strays have to stick together.”
He looked at her with awe, and suddenly the love he already felt for her magnified itself a thousand-fold. The feeling was so intense that for a moment he thought he might dissolve into tears. Instead he took a deep breath and said “I guess so. Thank you.”
“No sweat,” she said. “There’s just one thing I need to know first.”
“Sure.”
“What’s your name?”
Jack smiled, embarrassed. “Jack,” he said. “Jack Horn. What’s yours.”
“Diane Foster.”
Diane Foster, Jack thought. He knew that wasn’t her real name any more than his real name was Jack. Her real name was Eve. He wondered if she knew that. “Now I have to ask you something,” Jack said.
“Shoot.”
“How do you feel about cats?”
“You got a cat? You don’t even have a home.”
“It sort of adopted me. We sleep together on the park bench.”
She crinkled her nose and said “Sure, bring it along.”
•
The rest of the day flew by fast. Faster than any day Jack could remember. All day he had that light-as-a-feather feeling he had gotten the first time he had seen her. Only there were concerns, too. In the space of a day this girl had gone from a glorious phantom in his dreams to someone he worked with to someone he was going to live with. Exactly how was he supposed to pull this off? How could he act normally around her? How much should he tell her about what he knew? And how soon? And what did she know, if anything? What if he told her, and she thought he was crazy, and never wanted to see him again? He didn’t know the answers to any of those questions. He decided to simply take it slow, letting things play out one day at a time. For the first few days, he would say nothing.
When quitting time rolled around, he punched out and waited for Diane down in the lobby. He did not have to wait long. She got off the elevator, along with three others, and they made their way into the parking lot, to her car. She pulled out, made a quick left onto Old Hook, then a quick right onto Main, which she took to the park, where they got out together and made their way to the picnic area.
“Here kitty kitty kitty,” Jack cooed, snapping his fingers, and looking around for signs of feline life. Nothing. Jack and Diane exchanged a kind of puzzled stare, then Jack started in again with the here kittys. This time Diane joined in. Within moments the cat appeared, looking cautiously at the new party, then walking briskly over to Jack and rubbing up against his leg. Jack scooped it up in his arms, nuzzling its head with his chin, and brought it back to the car.
Diane retraced her path, back to Old Hook, and took it all the way to the end. Then she made a few more rights and lefts, each one taking them deeper into the outskirts of town, where there were less homes and more trees, trailers, and dirt